Granet stepped into his car and drove off. The
inventor stood looking after him. Then he spoke
to the sentry and made his way across the gardens
towards the boat-shed.

“I ought to have known it from the first,”
he muttered. “Reciprocal refraction was
the one thing to think about.”

Granet, as he drove back to the Dormy House, was conscious
of a curious change in the weather. The wind,
which had been blowing more or less during the last
few days, had suddenly dropped. There was a new
heaviness in the atmosphere, little banks of transparent
mist were drifting in from seawards. More than
once he stopped the car and, standing up, looked steadily
away seawards. The long stretch of marshland,
on which the golf links were situated, was empty.
A slight, drizzling rain was falling. He found,
when he reached the Dormy House, that nearly all the
men were assembled in one of the large sitting-rooms.
A table of bridge had been made up. Mr. Collins
was seated in an easy-chair close to the window, reading
a review. Granet accepted a cup of tea and stood
on the hearth-rug.

“How did the golf go this afternoon?”
he inquired.

“I was dead off it,” Anselman replied
gloomily.

“Our friend in the easy-chair there knocked
spots off us.”

Mr. Collins looked up and grunted and looked out of
the window again.

“Either of you fellows going to cut in at bridge?”
young Anselman continued.

Granet shook his head and walked to the window.

“I can’t stick cards in the daytime.”

Mr. Collins shut up his review.

“I agree with you, sir,” he said.
“I endeavoured to persuade one of these gentlemen
to play another nine holes—­unsuccessfully,
I regret to state.”

Granet lit a cigarette.

“Well,” he remarked, “it’s
too far to get down to the links again but I’ll
play you a game of bowls, if you like.”

The other glanced out upon the lawn and rose to his
feet.

“It is an excellent suggestion,” he declared.
“If you will give me five minutes to fetch my
mackintosh and galoshes, it would interest me to see
whether I have profited by the lessons I took in Scotland.”

They met, a few moments later, in the garden.
Mr. Collins threw the jack with great precision and
they played an end during which his superiority was
apparent. They strolled together across the lawn,
well away now from the house. For the first time
Granet dropped his careless tone.

“What do you make of this change in the weather?”
he asked quickly.

“It’s just what they were waiting for,”
the other replied. “What about this afternoon?”

“I am not scientist, worse luck,” Granet
replied impatiently, “but I saw enough to convince
me that they’ve got the right idea. Sir
Meyville thought I was the man commanding the escort
they’ve given him,—­actually rowed
me out to the workshop and showed me the whole thing.
I tell you I saw it just as you described it,—­saw
the bottom of the sea, even the colour of the seaweed,
the holes in the rocks.”